Birtalan Ágnes: Kalmyk Folklore and Folk Culture in the Mid-19th Century: Philological Studies on the Basis of Gábor Bálint of Szentkatolna’s Kalmyk Texts.
KALMYK VERNACULAR AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE
KALMYK VERNACULAR AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE KALMYK CONVERSATION (Bálint Xal 'imik künden , Kalm. Xal 'mg kündän) 1 2 Although Bálint provides some evidence (in details cf. at each chapter) on the circumstances of recording various folklore genres in his letters written to Fogarasi and in his Report, unfortunately, no such information is to be found on the recording of the conversational-entries. Bálint's only mention of his methodology is his regular noting down of words and expressions he heard while observing schoolboys at play. "I appeared every afternoon at four o'clock in the school, observed their playing and listened to their free talk." 7' The generally well-organised structure of the chapter Conversation, however, proves that a more systematic approach was used. Rather than merely noting down in situ dialogues, it appears instead that Bálint consciously recorded preliminarily prepared situations and sentence types. "My first pursuit was to note down the words and sentences I heard during the youngs' playing. I used an abbreviated Hungarian transcription-system since it was faster [to write texts this way] on one hand and to recognise the nuances of the folk pronunciation versus the writing on the other hand." 7 4 Possibly, some of these sentences might originate from the period Bálint leamt Kalmyk with Samba, and were dictated to him for educational purposes by of one of his Kalmyk language teachers. "Thereafter I studied and transcribed the exercises prepared by a former Kalmyk teacher [of mine] of language and style." 7 5 The chapter Phrases and Conversation in the Grammar contains six subchapters and is only partially identical with the fourteen subchapters of the Manuscript, as the latter offers a greater range of conversational subjects and also organised the matching sentences differently from the previous collection. 7 2 Manuscript pp. 1-8. Kalm. künden "Gespräch. Unterhaltung" (R. 250), kündän "beseda, sobesedovanije" (Mun. 330, kiindwr "razgovor, beseda" (Mun. 330), W.Oir. küdnden "razgovor" (Pozd. 293). ' "Mindennap délután négy órakor megjelentem az intézetben, ahol végignéztem minden játékot és hallgattam fesztelen beszédüket." Zágoni. p. 37 7 4 "Első foglalkozásomat képezte a khálymik ifjak játszása közben hallott szók és mondatok följegyzése rövidített magyaros átírással először a gyorsaság kedvéért, másodszor pedig azért, hogy népkiejtésnek az Írástól eltérő árnyalatait kiismerjem." Bálint: Jelentése. p. 10. 7 5 "Ezután egyik volt khálymik nyelvtanító készítette irály és fordítási gyakorlatokat tanulmányoztam és láttam el átírással." Bálint: Jelentése, p. 11. 26
